


A Headache of a Different Kind

by Cleothare



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Fluff, Gen, Headaches, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Migraine, Nausea, Sick Tony, Sickfic, Vomiting, Whump, light sensitivity, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 00:34:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19779658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cleothare/pseuds/Cleothare
Summary: Tony gets a migraine that sneaks up on him. Small vignette with Steve, and then Clint is the hero. Just lots of hurt/comfort.





	A Headache of a Different Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Literally I just wrote this so I could read it when I have a migraine and feel better.
> 
> I also want it known that I literally learned how to change a motorcycle tire and balance it, and ALSO did my science due-diligence for the bit at the end. Granted, I did this weeks ago, and it has now disappeared into the ether, but at one point I was TOTALLY dedicated.
> 
> Enjoy!

It took him about half a day to realize his headache was not the normal variety. Tony had had caffeine headaches (both types), normal headaches, blood pressure and dehydration headaches, stress headaches and staring-at-a-screen-too-long headaches. He was basically a walking medical encyclopedia entry about the many flavors of headaches.

So when his head continued hurting as this pulsing pressure behind his eyes drawing in a tightness in his neck and shoulders - even as it lasted through the afternoon and into the evening, Tony thought nothing of it. He popped a few ibuprofen, drank a begrudging glass of water down, and ate a granola bar for good measure. (Biology was one of those squishy sciences, so who knew if it was maybe actually a weird version of hunger plaguing him??)

He continued to work away in his lab, occasionally rubbing his eyes and temples, just trying to _concentrate_ on what was in front of him. He was used to being distracted easily - a side effect of the "undiagnosed" ADHD - but normally he was able to pull it back around to hyperfixation and Get Shit Done. There was a reason he was so good at multitasking and managed to draft out so many inventions and upgrades so quickly.

But today his brain was not playing nice. It felt like he was back in MIT, trying to make sense of what _else_ the professors and his classmates wanted from him. He did the homework, he aced the tests, he even attended class _all the time_ (even though it was often boring to listen to his classmates parse out what he'd already learned from the textbook); why did they all still look at him like he was missing something completely obvious? It felt alarmingly like that time Pepper got that sad smile on his face after she hugged him for the first time. Like he was missing the point entirely. He knew he was bad at emotions and social stuff, but he never quite felt so dumb as when he was confronted by it head on.

Tony rubbed his eyes again, and tried to decipher the equations in front of him again. This was easy, he could do this in his sleep. Except he couldn't; not today for some reason.

"J, give me a hand here," he said, still squinting at the screen. "What am I missing, because these numbers are not making sense to me - and everything makes sense to me."

"I'm not sure I understand, Sir."

"There's something wrong with these equations, there has to be. I can do these calculations when I am fueled only by spite and coffee and the mere memory of sleep, but something's - " he waved his hand in the air, searching for the word. And came up flat. "Something's…?"

"I believe the word you are looking for is wonky, Sir." JARVIS supplied, dry as always.

"Yes. Wonky." The whole situation felt wonky.

"There appears to be nothing wrong with the calculations and the equation to me, Sir. Perhaps it is a side-effect of the lack of sleep and nutrition you have suffered. It has been 27 hours and 53minutes since you last slept, and -"

"Don't be like that, J. I had a whole glass of water and a _granola_ bar earlier. Plus, 28 hours is small potatoes. Tell me when I hit the 40s. Scratch that, don't. I don't like nagging. Nope, it's gotta be the equation."

JARVIS's silence was pointed. Tony grimaced and rolled his eyes. That's what he gets for making an AI with _personality_.

"Whatever," he said. "I'll just take a break. Maybe I'm just too into it." Sometimes his brain just decided it wanted to work on something else and sometimes it also forgot to _tell_ Tony. Sometimes Tony had to figure it out on his own like a very slow, truncated game of Marco Polo.

"I need to do something with my hands. Time to have a go at Capsicle's Cap Cycle." Tony pushed back from his drafting table, and meandered over towards the bike, on the lift, with both tires off the ground.

It had been a side project and had hit the backburner pretty quickly (not that Tony didn't cycle through his mid-to-front backburner fairly rapidly anyway). Cap had popped his tire during their last chase-and-desist, as Tony called them, and Tony had taken it upon himself to recreate the wheel, so to speak. There was no dignity in riding a motorcycle as awesome as this if it was so vulnerable to broken glass at high speeds. To be taken down by a broken window shard was embarrassing.

So Tony had played with the polymers in the rubber, tweaked the inner-tube to be a little more robust without giving up too much in terms of malleability to high-speed stress on the shape and structure, and made a new set of wheels for the motorcycle. All that was left was the assembly and making sure the weight was right and actually bolting the things back on.

Tony took his time to get the tire back onto the rim, checking the psi was still within acceptable range once the bead was over the shoulder, and made to balance the tires. Not that Tony would ever, _ever_ admit that his custom tires or rims could be out of balance. Not that they were, even. Just a couple grams. Just a little bit. Probably Cap's fault anyway.

The rear tire went swimmingly, two 2.5gram weights magnetically attached (a neodymium magnet, because while centrifugal force would keep the weights happily set in their place on the rim, Tony didn't trust Steve as far as he could throw him - not far - to not create his own unusual circumstances and somehow lose a standard magnet and then be left bouncing and bumbling around on his cycle in a very un-Captain American way) and it was balanced perfectly.

It was the front tire that stymied Tony, and clued him in that he maybe needed to take a walkabout break. He got as far as balancing with 2.5g (too little), and then with 5g (too much) when his brain shut down entirely. One weight was too little. Two was too much. He could tell that much. The next logical thing to do was split the difference, but for the life of him, he could not do the mental math.

Half of two-and-a-half was… one and a half of a half… which was… two-point-five? Point-two-five. But then you add it… to half of five. Which was… two-point…-five. He came up with three-point-one-two-five. But that seemed wrong, because somewhere there should be a point-seven-five. Did he mis-halve something? Half of five was two-point-five, divided by two..?

Tony shook his head and stretched out his neck. His head hurt. Nothing new, but it was making it harder to concentrate than it should have been. His thoughts were errant and not following through the way he wanted them to. Maybe if he spoke it aloud it would give his brain a bit more direction 

"2.5 divided by 2… is 1.25. Add that to 5. No, subtract. _Subtract_ , Tony. 5 minus 1 is 4. And minus 1 is 3. Add back in the remainder -- half of .5 is .25 -- is 3.25 grams…"

"Three-point- _seven_ -five, Sir." JARVIS interjected.

Tony sputtered to a halt. JARVIS was right. It was painfully obvious now.

"Yeah," he said, somewhat vacantly. This was a new low. Simple halves should not have been this much trouble. He looked at the tire in front of him without seeing it.

"Are you feeling well, Sir? Perhaps you should rest a bit."

"No, no J, I'm fine. It was just a small slip up. Probably something awful I got from that granola bar. I don't even like granola, I don't know why I even ate it."

"Sir, I must suggest you take a break. It has been 31 hours and 2 minutes since you last rested - " But Tony had stopped listening at this point.

It had taken him almost 3 hours to swap out these two tires? He could normally change a tire by hand in 25 minutes, start to finish. What the hell?

"How long have I been trying to balance this tire, J?" Tony asked.

"You put the second weight in 17 minutes ago, Sir."

"17 minutes?! I've been trying to do that mental math for _17 minutes!?_ "

"It would appear so, Sir."

Tony rubbed a hand over his face, aware but uncaring that he was also transferring tire lube from his hand to his face and hair.

"Maybe I do need to take a break." He stood up a little stiffly from sitting for _apparently_ a long time. "Why are the lights so bright in here, J? Can you turn them down to 50%?"

"Lights are already at 30%, Sir. You asked me to dim them almost an hour ago, and again about an hour prior to that."

Tony stood dumbly and looked around the workshop. The workshop that looked incredibly bright to him, even at 30% light. He mutely contemplated his inability to think clearly and his loss of time.

"Well _shit_ ," he said finally. "J, was I rubbing my eyes earlier? A lot? At the holograms?"

JARVIS paused, presumably reviewing the video feeds.

"It would appear so, Sir. You rubbed your eyes with a significantly higher frequency than average, and also seemed to knead your shoulders intermittently."

"When did I -"

"You started this behavior six hours ago, Sir. May I ask what is going on?"

Tony sighed heavily.

"A migraine, J. A damn migraine, and I didn't even realize it was creeping up on me." Tony groaned. It was probably too late for any meds he could take to do any real damage. He didn't always get auras before a migraine, but he assumed that if he had been rubbing his eyes for that long then he must have missed the floaty auras in the glow of the holograms. It dawned on him that he had also turned his music down. Way down.

"Game plan," Tony said, unprompted. "I gotta get as ahead of this train wreck as I can while I can. I have to eat something while I can before I get nauseous - god I hope I don't get nauseous. I'm going to pound back a few cups of coffee post-haste in case that might save the day, and I need to get to my room and initiate lockdown immediately."

Tony was moving across the workshop to the door.

"J?" He asked. "Do me a favor and tell Pep. If I can't be available for a bit, she'll appreciate the warning."

"Yes, Sir."

Tony grabbed a pair of sunglasses from the table on his way out the door.

"Meds, and then take me to the kitchen, please, JARVIS."

======

Tony had hoped that no one would be around this late at night in the communal kitchen. Too late for dinner, too early for midnight snacks - or so he hoped. Tony also had forgotten that he had lost multiple hours already today, and while he last remembered it being about 10pm, JARVIS had confirmed that he had lost time, and it was actually closer to 5am by this point than midnight.

Meaning it was just about the right time for Steve to be getting up for his morning run and orange juice.

Tony walked into the doorway -- or what accounted as a doorway, given that it was a hallway onto an open-layout kitchen-cum-dining-area-cum-den -- and considered about facing his way the hell out of there. He was not sure he would be able to deal with Steve's pep this early in the night. Morning. Whatever. Or that he would be able to digest any possible considerations of his lifestyle that Steve felt needed scrutiny. _'You should get more sleep, Tony. You should probably cut back on that caffeine intake, Tony. How about a Real breakfast, Tony?'_ said with a sort of implied disdain for whatever dry cereal Tony managed to grab from the cabinet on his blind forays before the fresh coffee was made.

But Steve canted his body towards Tony in the doorway, and Tony knew that if he left now that Steve had seen him, he would be followed. Tony steeled himself a bit and decided to try and play it like nothing was going on. Hopefully Steve would just leave and Tony could nurse himself back to health in his room. By himself. Alone. In the dark. All day.

It wasn't as bad as it sounded.

"Hey Cap," Tony said, trying for nonchalant as he bee-lined for the coffee machine around the far side of the island.

"Morning Tony," Steve said warmly. Like fricking sunshine and meadows. Fucking morning people.

Tony busied himself with the coffee prep and as the silence stretched on, he hoped that maybe he got lucky and Steve was already mentally out the door and on his run, and Tony had some time to collect himself and hide away before anyone else got up. He parked himself in front of the coffee machine and willed it to make coffee faster.

"You're quiet," Steve said. So much for unnoticed.

"Nothing comes between me and coffee, Steve. _Nothing._ Coffee. First." Tony tried, holding up a single finger. 

"Mm." Steve sounded dubious

Steve leaned over to where Tony was watching the coffee machine expectantly and flipped a switch, turning the little bugger on. Tony froze. Hadn't he turned on the machine? He thought he had. How could he forget to turn on the damn machine? Tony hated migraines.

"You sure you're alright?" Steve sounded somewhere between amused and concerned, and Tony knew he had to act fast.

"Perfectly fine, Spangles. Just a little tired." Tony reached up to rub his eyes with his free hand, hoping to sell the point, conveniently forgetting he had sunglasses on, and trying to reach through them. It did not work. Tony was personally attacked by his migraine again and he took note of how badly he wanted to kick this specific migraine's ass for making him poke himself in the eye.

"A little might be an understatement." Steve said, and turned to wash his orange juice glass and wash his spoon from his… yogurt? Was that yogurt? What kind of monster eats dairy product and follows it with citrus juice? Tony was appalled and offended. More offended by Steve than he had been at his migraine messing with his coffee, and that was saying something. At least the migraine messing with the coffee made _sense_ on some level; migraines and caffeine were practically sworn enemies. Arch nemeses. Steve was just crossing a line for the hell of it.

"You know it is still before sunrise? You don't really need the sunglasses."

Tony scowled behind his glasses.

"But I like them," he said. Maybe that would work. That sounds like something he could feasibly say, right?

Steve looked at him sidelong before seeming to chalk it up to Tony being Tony. He chuckled, and took his leave.

"See you later Tony. Get some rest." And with that he was gone and on his run and Tony was alone in the kitchen.

"I thought he would never leave…" Tony murmured after he was sure Steve was really gone. Trying to pretend everything was absolutely fine with Steve had drained him. He reached up to rub his eyes behind his sunglasses, asking JARVIS to dim the lights a bit. Tony swallowed down the pills he had been palming since he left the workshop. He then poured himself a cup of the what was probably only the readiest coffee in the world. And then another. And finally a third.

"JARVIS, what time is sunrise today?"

"Sunrise is hit to set Manhattan at 5:37am today, Sir. 14 minutes from now."

"Alright, let's plan to be in bed before that, then."

"Tony Stark making _plans_ for bedtime? The world must be ending!" A voice said from somewhere vaguely… up. Tony paused for a brief moment before realizing it had to be Clint in the vents. Or the cabinets. Or on the hanging hood over the island. Or something.

Tony cast about, looking for the spy. Turning slowly in place like it would make a difference if he stayed in the same square foot of floor space rather than back away very slowly like he wanted to do.

"Who bodysnatched you, Tony? Blink twice if you are being controlled. Wait: remove your sunglasses and _then_ blink if you need help."

Tony rolled his eyes. It hurt, but it was worth it.

"Alright, come out little cheep-cheep. I give up. I'm not awake enough for hide and seek."

"Come out from where?" Clint said, disturbingly from behind Tony's shoulder. Tony jumped - though he managed to not spill a drop of his coffee - and rounded on Clint.

"Jesus birdbrain, I have a heart condition! A literal, honest-to-god heart condition." Tony clasped dramatically at his chest. To be honest, he did feel a little rough around the edges, but that was probably just the strain of the migraine deciding it wanted to play soon. "Personal space bubble!"

Clint held up his hands in the universal placating gesture, taking a pointed big step back. He was smirking, the fucker.

Tony scowled at him behind his glasses. It was easy enough to pull all the frustration and discomfort from his headache and focus it in on Clint. He sniffed and pulled his coffee closer to himself.

"What are you doing?" Tony asked. Realizing that might not be clear, he added: "Up. What are you doing up. Now. Here. This morning."

Clint broke into a real grin.

"I couldn't sleep. So I thought I would mess with Steve, but then you showed up, and you are so much more fun."

Tony eyed him. This conversation was not going any direction Tony wanted. He paused.

"No thank you." He said decisively.

"No thank you?"

"Yes, that's right. I'm perfectly fine today, but thank you for asking." And Tony tried to turn around and leave. God, he was exhausted, and his headache was starting to become a louder presence. Why was Clint being so loud?

Clint grabbed him by the coffee arm, and somehow snaked the cup of coffee out of Tony's hands (betrayal!) and into his own before Tony realized it. He stopped a few steps away and looked down at his empty hands for a moment, taking longer than he wanted to process what had happened. He turned around in slow motion and looked at Clint, torn between furious and forlorn.

"My coffee…" he said. Words were getting to be difficult. He wanted to say something like ' _give me back my coffee, that's just cruel and unusual punishment to do to someone this early in the morning, and I thought better of you,'_ and/or _'Clint, this is really uncalled for. Please give me my coffee back or I might actually literally weep in a corner on the floor, and neither of us want that to happen, I am not a pretty cryer, we will both be scarred.'_ But all he could manage was "My coffee…" and a hand held out plaintively asking for it back. Tony maybe a little tiny bit felt like crying anyway. Hoo boy he needed to get to his room and lockdown mode fast. Once the migraine had hold of the emotions it became an Eldritch horror and just started devouring every bit of Tony in its path.

Clint had clearly been waiting for Tony to say something more like his internal monologue, but when that didn't happen, his smile faltered a bit, and he stepped closer to return Tony's coffee to his hands gently.

"You okay, Tony?" He was looking at Tony with his Hawkeye eyes, not his Clint eyes. He was analyzing him. Tony tried not to tense under his gaze. Tensing in front of a spy was like admitting you were guilty in the first place.

"Mmmm" Tony said. Grunted. "Better now that coffee is here again." It was a weak reply, but Tony could practically feel his brain turning to sludge in his head. He was tired, he was cranky, but too tired to care that he was cranky. His head was pounding, but in a patient way, like it was sure that it would have ample time later to run its course, and this was just the appetizer. He just wanted to go to bed, before things got too bad.

"Tony what's wrong?" Clint asked.

"Nothing, Chickadee. I'm just tired. Hit a dead end with… a… thing I was working on… and I need to … sleep some of it off." Tony wasn't sure if those were the right words. He also wasn't entirely sure if a dead end like that was something that had happened at some point that night. It was true enough that he was pretty sure he could get away with using it as a not-lie so Clint wouldn't catch on that there was more going on.

Clint squinted at him, but did not protest, only crossing his arms as Tony slowly turned and headed towards his floor.

Clint followed him. It took Tony until he was in the elevator with Clint and ascending to realize that he was not sharing an elevator with Hawkeye, but was being followed by the man.

"I think I'll get home safe, thank you for your concern," Tony said, aiming for humor. It fell pretty flat.

Clint only hemmed in reply. _'Not buying it.'_

Tony was pretty sure that this problem would resolve itself as soon as he got to his room, so he was not concerned. Clint would walk him to the door, see that Tony really was intending to go to bed, and would be fine, and would leave.

Tony did not count on the sunrise happening while they were in the elevator. He had been losing time, so it probably should not have surprised him, but nevertheless: here he was.

The elevator doors opened, and the whites and creams of the upholstery and carpeting in Tony's suite caught all the ambient light from the morning sun and bounced them all around. On a normal day Tony would have at least appreciated how much light came into the place, but today it was like torture to the eyes.

Tony grimaced and caught a groan in his throat as the doors slid apart and the light flooded in. Thank goodness that he had the sunglasses on. He gripped his mug a little tighter, and forced himself to walk to his bedroom door, clenching his jaw. He was keeping the brunt of the migraine under wraps by sheer force of will at this point. He needed to get into his room and just… away. From everything else.

In another fit of spectacular stupidity, Tony forgot that he had built his room facing East. At the time it wasn't that he wanted to see the sunrise so much as he didn't want to see the sunset, and he was so rarely in his room in the morning that the thought never occurred to him.

With Hawkeye behind him, shadowing like he was, Tony opened the door to his bedroom and was assaulted with the sunrise.

He didn't even have time to appreciate how beautiful it probably was before his mind recoiled in agony.

"Oh ow. Ow ow ow, _ow_." Tony said, scrunching his eyes tight and trying to pull his head back into his body like maybe he somehow just forgot he was a turtle and could hide away from this. He stumbled about half a step back before he locked his legs like he was in the suit. _Must not fall down. Must stay standing. Do not move._

"Tony?"

The lights were _so_ bright. Too bright. Like staring at the Sun. His eyes scrambled to adjust, but it was so bright it was disorienting. Tony gripped the doorknob tighter in his right hand, and if his coffee cup managed to survive this, it deserved a hand-washing instead of getting popped in the dishwasher.

"Tony. Tony!"

Clint was getting nervous, part of Tony's brain - the blissfully ignorant and compartmentalizing part of his brain - supplied. He should probably say something; let Clint know he was alright. Or alright as he could be at the moment.

Tony tried to open his mouth to speak but couldn’t manage more than a vague, whispery grunt. Distantly he was aware is was just his head that hurt, but it hurt so much that it felt like his whole body may as well be on fire. Or being run over by a truck.

Clint was back in his personal space. He must have stepped around Tony because the flood of light still seeping through his closed eyelids faltered and shifted as Clint moved through it. It should have been a bit of relief, interrupting the full-on force of the sunlight, but in actuality it did nothing but disorient Tony further. He was beginning to feel a smidge nauseous and dizzy. Damn it.

Clint was talking in the background, Tony was pretty sure. But Tony’s head hurt so much he could barely string a thought together, let alone string together Clint’s words.

“jj-JARV—” Tony forced out a strained whisper. “liights…!”

Clint blessedly stopped speaking - a little less dissonance for Tony to deal with - and JARVIS polarized the windows. Tony let out a small strangled sigh as things toned down on the other side of his eyelids. Not enough to make the pain stop, but enough to make it back down to more _manageable_ levels of excruciating pain.

“Tony what is going on?” Clint demanded. His hand was somehow on Tony’s shoulder, had it been there awhile? 

Tony just groaned. He needed a minute to catch his breath. 

"My apologies, Sir."

"ttThe fuck, J?" Tony managed, ignoring Clint. It felt like someone was taking an icepick to his temple. Or the bridge of his nose. Maybe both.

"I had assumed 25% brightness would suffice and polarized appropriately. My apologies; I had not realized your sensitivity had increased."

"Sensitivity?" Clint asked, and Tony cringed, tucking his head closer to his chest. Maybe if he just didn't move it would hurt less…? A guy could hope. Like he could hope that Clint would maybe just leave. And stop bellowing (he _knew_ he was just talking, but it _felt_ like Clint was bellowing). And just generally disappear from Tony's life at the moment, because it was too hard to think about himself, let alone the concept of someone else existing in the same room. He took a few deep, shivery breaths, trying to figure out if his stomach was trying to abandon ship or not.

"Sensitivity?" Clint repeated, lowering his voice to something above a whisper, hitting his lower register. A distant, disassociated part of Tony appreciated that Clint was picking up on at least a little of what was going on, and was trying to be quieter.

"Sir is experiencing a migraine. This one seems to have progressed rather quickly."

Tony felt his hands start to tremble from his death grip on the doorknob and his coffee cup. It hurt to move, it hurt to stay still, he was embarrassingly close to tears and didn't know whether it could possibly get worse if he shifted. It certainly felt like it _could_ , even if he wasn't sure _how._

Clint gently put a hand on Tony's forearm holding the door.

"Let go, Tony."

Tony made a small noise of protestation. He was fairly certain that he could just stand here instead until the migraine wore off. No matter that it might last all day. He could do it. He just really didn't want to make it somehow worse than it already was. 

"Can you look at me?" Tony certainly didn't want to. Looking at Clint would require opening his eyes, which meant that the light would get in again. He shook his head slightly. 

"Tony, I need to see your eyes," Clint said. He stepped right into Tony's space so close that Tony could smell his body wash or deodorant or possibly his hair gel. Tony focused on trying to breath and not get (more) nauseous from the scents mingling, until he felt his sunglasses being lifted off his face. Tony squawked - didn't Clint understand that the sunglasses were necessary? He moved to pull his hand to his face, hoping to intercept Clint's hand and grab his sunglasses again, but Clint's hand on his forearm tightened over his wrist and Tony suddenly felt very trapped. 

"Tony, open your eyes."

"Let gooo" he whined. He knew he was whining, but everything hurt, and he was now without his sunglasses, and he didn't have the doorknob to ground him anymore.

"I'll let go when you open your eyes," Clint said, implacably. Why did he even want to see his eyes, what the fuck? Tony must have missed a couple beats or something, because he hadn't realized he had relaxed the teensiest amount into his new version of Hell until he was jarred by Clint saying again: "Tony, open your eyes and let me help."

Clint didn't sound like he was going anywhere, and Tony tried to consider his odds. If Clint wouldn't leave, then it was probably better to just brace himself and do as he asked. Once Clint was satisfied that Tony was… was…? Tony didn't even know what Clint was searching for, but probably just trying to check if it was a poison or some deadly disease.

Tony really did not want to open his eyes. He was dizzy and nauseous and pretty sure the only thing keeping him sane at this point was the fact that he had blocked so much of the overwhelming visual input out by keeping his eyes closed. But Clint hummed disappointedly, and Tony faltered. He didn’t *think* Clint would force him to open his eyes, but he *might*, and Tony was definitely not prepared to fend off a super spy with his eyes closed. So Tony resigned himself and took a fleeting second to think petulantly that if he died because he opened his eyes and got overwhelmed, then it was totally all Clint’s fault and he would be totally justified in haunting his ass forever.

“Okay,” Tony whispered. Clint’s hand on his wrist twitched, as if he were surprised Tony had agreed.

Tony took a few bracing breaths. Trying to prepare himself for the moment. It was a pointless exercise, but Tony tried anyway.

“Okay,” he said again, a little stronger. “Okay.”

And before he could change his mind, he opened his eyes, and tried to keep them open as wide and as long as he could.

He didn’t last long, probably, but it felt like forever. Colors - overbright and aggressive - poured into his sights, disorienting him enough that he couldn’t even tell what some of the items were. It was like looking through a fisheye lens, except the distortion was more than just shape. Things looked like they were glowing; vibrating with energy maybe. Everything was distressingly stationary but amorphous. Tony *knew* what his dresser looked like, but the shape in front of him was only something that may have once been his dresser in another life.

In the back of his mind, the analytical part of him knew it was because his pupils were constricted, and the sensitivity to light was just messing with his processing power. He *knew* it was his mind playing tricks on him, but did it ever feel like he had shifted onto a different plane and was missing something very important.

In the center of the madness around him was Clint’s very concerned face, up close and personal, searching. His brow was furrowed and his eyes flicked back and forth between Tony’s in a way that was going to be dizzying if Tony thought about it or looked at the motion too much longer.

“Your pupils are very small,” he said calmly. As if he were talking about the weather and not how whacked out Tony’s biometrics were at the moment. “I thought it may have been a concussion, but it looks like it might just be a migraine after all.”

“‘Just’” Tony choked out. He really did feel like crying. If only he could call something ‘just a migraine.’

Clint half-smiled, half-grimaced in sympathy. “Yeah, you’re right. ‘Just’ is probably an understatement.”

Tony’s eyes were watering (was he crying? It was hard to tell) and he could hear his blood rushing in his ears. Bruce once said that sound was actually a muscular response to too-loud sounds, but Tony didn’t *think* there was anything loud around him…? He tried to resist the urge to squint his eyes. Clint had asked for him to open his eyes for a reason, and as much as Tony didn't normally want to

“You can close your eyes, Tony,” Clint said, and Tony promptly did. He thought it would be a relief, but it mostly just felt like lipstick on a pig. It just gave him more clarity on the other parts that hurt than actually relieved any of the pain. “Were you actually going to bed? I can help you there; you don’t look like you can really -“ he paused as if he might be gesturing, searching for the word. “-manage that? Right now.”

Tony let out a breath that he had intended to be a laugh, but came out as a stuttered sigh instead. Clint simply waited, until Tony gathered himself enough to form his mouth around the thought:

“MmmBed, yesss” 

He was slurring a bit. Tony figured it was to be expected; he couldn’t be bothered with worrying about when to start the sounds of his words in relation to his mouth. Fucking *thinking* was hard enough on its own.

“Alright then, iron maiden, let’s get you to bed.” Clint let go of Tony’s previously-known-as-doorknob hand, and stepped closer into Tony’s space, disappearing his coffee mug (don’t let go, Rose!) in the process. Tony had an instant’s consideration of flinching against the sudden movement before it was too late and he was flinching into Clint’s body as he swung Tony’s arm across his shoulders and his arm around Tony’s waist.

Tony groaned and Clint shushed him. “It’ll be better once you lie down,” he said instead of apologizing, starting to pull Tony into the room. 

“Wa-it!” Tony gasped, as he was set off-balance and the world behind his eyes tilted and twisted. “I need a minute.”

“Dizzy?” Clint asked, but he did stop.

“Mm-mm. Nnooo — Nausea.”

Tony breathed slowly for a minute or so, clinging desperately to Clint, willing him to not move. Clint, to his credit, was doing his best to be an immovable object against which Tony could lean. 

Tony tried to count seconds as he breathed. He had already been breathing pretty heavily ever since he opened his eyes, and now his mouth was watering in a desperate, last-ditch effort to quiet the need to vomit. 

In the end, breathing slowly didn’t so much help with the nausea, as give him something else to think about, which would have to suffice for the moment. At least the swaying behind his eyes had calmed down. Say what you may about snipers and spies, Clint was very good at staying absolutely still, and at least Tony could count on that solidity.

“Mmkay,” Tony managed after a few moments. “I might still throw up, but it’s a lot less likely than it was.”

“A comforting thought,” Clint snarked. But he was gentle when he shifted Tony back to upright (when had he listed forward?) and started to move towards the bed again. 

Tony was ready for the movement this time, but it to little avail. Without a reference point his head was swimming the instant he moved. He was going to have to open his eyes. Tony dreaded it, but surely it had to be at least a *little* better than this mess.

About three or four steps in, he forced himself to open his eyes. It helped... as much as he probably should have expected. Instead of swirling and shifting blackness with no real form (formless orange-red, if he’s being honest; sunlight is a vicious sonnuvabitch, that didn’t respect his closed eyes) , he was now assaulted by a lot more color and vague shapes. At least they collectively moved in a more predictable way with each step. He supposed he had to count that as something like a win; his standards for the day had gotten depressingly low.

“You alright, there?” Clint asked, but he kept walking. 

“I’ll be honest,” Tony said, gritting his teeth against all of it, “I’ve been better.”

Clint barked out a laugh. 

“Well, there’s still hope for you, Stark, if you’re making jokes.” Clint slowed their walk. Tony was simultaneously relieved to turn down the intensity of the stimuli, and mortified that slowing down would not guarantee anything got better. It was hard to tell if he was in so much pain because of all the overstimulation, or if he was always going to crescendo in the same amount of time, and slowing down would mean he lost his tenuous grip on himself *before* he got to the bed.

“Bed,” Clint said simply. “Hold here, I’ll pull back the covers.” Oh. Well that solved that, then.

Tony was left swaying in space, or maybe the room was swaying around him. Hard to tell. He closed his eyes again because if it was going to move regardless, he may as well have the swirls behind his eyes instead of his bedroom set. 

“Normally I’d probably insist you put on pajamas, but I think you need to be horizontal more than you need ComfyPants.”

“Astute,” Tony whispered. But really, god bless Clint. A+, champion, the Best Avenger. Tony would probably still be clutching the doorknob and in denial about what was happening if not for Clint. He deserved a pony or something shiny.

“Okay, into the bed now,” Clint said, and he pulled at Tony’s shoulders again, leading him to bump his knees against the bed. “Alright, you’re here now. Gotta step up into the bed.”

Tony spared a single errant thought to consider that it was almost a privilege to have Literally Hawkeye as his seeing-eye-guide. He may not be able to see at the moment, but with Hawkeye’s, like, 5/20 vision (or 20/80? How did that work?) he was more than making up for Tony’s closed eyes.

Tony climbed into the bed and flopped down on the pillows, curling up around them. Bed was good. Bed was safe. Bed would mean quiet and dark and maybe Tony could sleep through the migraine. That was the kind of lost time Tony was _looking_ for.

Clint was taking Tony’s shoes off, and Tony was disoriented to realize he’d missed that starting to happen, but, yeah, sure, whatever. Clint was probably right about no shoes in bed. He may actually thank him later, if the thought of thanking Clint didn’t feel like blasphemy. Clint didn’t get “thanks” outside of battlefield life-saving scenarios. It was uncomfortable to say, and he got uncomfortable being thanked. Not acknowledging these things was better for everyone involved.

Though to be fair, Clint was actually doing a Frosted Flakes Grrrrreat job of saving Tony’s life at the moment. He was helping Tony to bed, he was listening when Tony told him to slow down or stop, he was speaking quietly or not at all, and when he did speak it was to the point and Tony appreciated that. Concise, quiet, and — wait. 

“Did you make a pun..?” Tony asked the air. 

“What?”

“Back... there... did you make a pun at me? About me? For me?”

There was a pause and Tony was tempted to open his eyes to see what was going on on Clint's face, but not nearly tempted enough to actually do it.

"I didn't think you caught it." Clint admitted. "When you don't snipe back at me when I poke fun at you it's a bad day in the neighborhood. Kinda how I knew you were in some serious pain."

"Level 8, 8.5," Tony mumbled. Clint probably didn't need to know where Tony's migraine fell on the 1-10 scale, but it was something that Tony was sort of clinging to, being able to remember that he had survived through worse. Not that he should be thinking about that. He should stop that train of thought. Step away from the vehicle, ma'am, you do not need to think about caves and car batteries and things right now. There are other pressing matters. Like the sunlight being too strong. And your pillow being a nice amount of cool under your cheek. And whether you need a blanket because you are a teensy bit cold - and *no* let's not think about whether you are actually cold or thinking back to the cave. Other things, details. Like Clint talking. Wait, listen to Clint.

"--ot that I wouldn't find that funny, but it really wasn't so much about Princess Peach, as it was more like, medieval torture device. You know, with the added benefit of, you know, Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden. Felt right."

Clint was draping what felt like a sheet over Tony's shoulders. It was not as heavy as the blanket, but Tony was grateful for the little bit of warmth and feeling of protection it offered.

"not good.. 'f you 'xplainn," Tony said. He didn't really know how to let someone else talk without responding to tell them he had been listening. But it was really hard to speak. Or hard to think clearly enough to form words.

"Yeah yeah, but you looked even *more* like a sad puppy when you thought I meant Maid Marion needing to be saved." Clint's voice had moved from where Tony thought he had left it near the head of his bed. It was coming from across the room and Tony had a fleeting thought that he was actually passing out (at least he was already in bed), before he realized that would probably be nice. Though that might mean he needed to up his point-value to 9. He only ever passed out from pain at 9.

But then Clint was back and Tony felt him sit on the bed. 

"I got you some water. I like warm water when I get nauseous, but I know that sometimes cold water is better. So I got both." 

Tony was so tired, but his head was throbbing like his heart had relocated and was throwing a housewarming rave.

"I saw you took your meds already. Anything I can do?"

Tony tried to think about Clint's question. Yes? Or maybe? Tony didn't know what he needed other than the whole lot of it to just… stop… Was there anything he could do? What was Tony supposed to do with a migraine? … water… Coffee… uhh… Meds. Sleep? Was… he took his meds. He knew that. No lights. Well, that was as good as it was going to get. Probably. Or maybe he could ask Clint.

"Lllllights?"

"JARVIS already has them blocking out as much as he can. Said something about you having agreed to a lower limit at some point with Pepper…?"

Tony would weep, if he didn't think it would just make things worse. He did not need a post-cry headache on top of this. As it was, he let out a little whine to which he was never going to admit.

"If it helps, it sounded like JARVIS was already making plans to fix this for next time? And maybe this will work?"

There was a bit of movement from the mattress, and then Clint was warning Tony he was about to touch him. In an instant there was something slipped over his face and knotted by the base of his skull.

"Not the best option, maybe, but I thought a blindfold might do the trick?" Clint had not moved his hands from the knot and the back of Tony's neck, as if waiting for confirmation that it was okay.

The makeshift blindfold smelled like Clint, and Tony was not sure how he felt. Grateful that Clint had thought of this, yes, but the mix of smells not his own was… disorienting. Part of his body wanted to relax, take comfort from the familiar TeammateSafe smells, but the migraine wanted him to be nauseous at the assault again, and Tony was not sure which would win out.

"Let me know if you want me to take it off. I know you were a little overwhelmed before."

Clint was being so quiet and considerate it made Tony want to cry. All his fucking emotions living right beneath his surface, threatening to just pour out because someone was _whispering_?? Get a _grip_ , Tony. It was literally a piece of fabric.

"'Sgood," Tony managed. He wasn't 100% sure it would be, but he could always remove it himself later if he had to.

"Mind if I try something?" Clint asked. Tony was surprised by the question, but he was so beyond caring right now. His head had gotten worse and even curled around a pillow on his bed with a blindfold and the meds coursing through his blood, he felt almost to his limit of input. Tony wasn't entirely sure if anything else even *could* make things worse, they were so bad already. Maybe he'd skipped all the way past 9 and into level 10, when it hurt so much he *couldn't* pass out. Clint could probably throw Tony over the back of a motorcycle and go off-roading and Tony would not be able to pinpoint a change in condition of his mind.

So that was a yeah, go ahead. Tony grunted an affirmative-slash-'what' and gave Clint as much permission as he could to go for it.

Clint's hands dug into his shoulders and ran up the base of his neck towards his ears and back and *Oh My God* was that divine. Tony really did start to cry then, tears leaking out behind his closed eyes. He let out a whimper - an honest-to-god whimper that would be embarrassing in any other instance, but *fuck*, Tony was so raw and this was so fabulous he didn't even care. His breathing shifted and he really felt like he might suddenly turn into a puddle of tears as the tight grip he had started to break and his tears gathered more quickly.

"No?" Clint asked, alarmed, and abruptly stopped. It was awful. Tony had felt salvation, and it was just ripped away. When it took Tony a second to collect his thoughts enough to form words (sounds would not do for this, there was too much leeway in grunts and moans to clarify that "no - not 'no,' that would be a very much yes please.") Clint pulled his hands away from touching Tony at all. Tony threw a hand out blindly, trying to catch Clint's hands, and managed to at least graze his arm enough to grab hold and stop the motion 

"More?" Tony pleaded. Begged, almost. He didn't care.

"Alright," he said, and his hands were back. Knowing that Clint now knew it was welcome and was unlikely to stop helped Tony relax into it. At some point Clint shifted his hands to push at his temples - which hurt and almost had Tony hitting the e-stop, but he trusted Clint to know what he was doing at this point, and it paid off in the end - and to card his fingers through Tony's hair and scalp. None of this really made the migraine any less awful, but it gave him something else to think about and focus on as good. Maybe that was enough.

It was, for awhile. But soon enough the nausea he’d been holding at bay started to get the better of him, and Tony knew he had to face the music.

“Gonna be sick,” he blurted out. Clint’s hands stilled and Tony heard him curse under his breath.

“Should I ...? To the bathroom or do you want a — bowl?”

“Don’t care; bathroom...?” Tony struggled to sit up. Clint helpfully pulled back the covers entangling him, and held onto his elbow to guide him up.

“Alright, take it easy.”

Tony pulled the blindfold off his face, knowing it would be unpleasant, but he needed to see to make it to the bathroom quickly. He wondered that the human body could Feel *so* much all at once.

With Clint at his side, doing more to hold Tony upright and moving than he would normally be comfortable with, Tony stumbled into the bathroom and let himself “gently” collapse by the toilet. He was breathing heavy, wet breaths, hoping it would pass or come to a head quickly.

“Do you...? Want me in here? Or?”

Tony didn’t respond. He didn’t really care at this point. Everything just sucked so much that having someone witness his retching was probably the least of his worries. He would not be proud of it later, probably embarrassed, but for now he had no mental bandwidth to consider how Future Tony might feel about Clint watching him throw up.

“I’m gonna assume you want to be alone. Because I would want to be alone. So... just let me know if you need anything...?” Clint was hovering half-in, half-out the doorway. Tony tried to give a hearty thumbs up of approval and comprehension, knowing he would only get halfway there at best.

“Alright.” And then Clint was gone, the door was gently shut, but not closed all the way. Presumably so Tony could open it from his place on the floor without needing the doorknob. 

Clint - or more likely JARVIS - was smart enough to have put the lights mostly out, just illuminating them enough that Tony could see without aggravating his eyes. Back here, in the bathroom, without windows to the outside, things were more muted, and it helped with Tony’s vertigo. Unlike the sun-filled room, this was muted tones of browns and blacks and greys, and a lot easier to keep track of in his swimming vision than the sharper edges of his bedroom. 

Tony was so immensely tired. Tired enough that it almost blocked out the nausea, but settled for warring for control. Tony absently wondered if he might fall asleep while throwing up? And what an unexpected turn that would be, if he passed out and choked on his own vomit, not from alcohol poisoning like so many had once expected of him, but a damned migraine.

Tony was at least confident Clint wouldn’t let that happen though. He thought he was being sly, sitting outside the door like he wasn’t listening to every heaving breath and groan Tony was making. But he wasn’t. Sitting outside was more a visual impression of privacy; Tony knew better than to think he wasn’t being entirely, well, watched like a hawk.

The problem with migraine nausea was that the body wants to throw up, it wants to turn itself inside out like it would be happier with the goopy bits on the outside, like a snail merging from its shell. Normally you feel like you need to hurl, you hurl just the contents of your stomach, and move on with your life. The issue with hugging the toilet during a migraine is that there was nothing *to* throw up. Maybe a bit of black coffee, but mostly just bile. Bile and regrets.

It was awful and cyclical. Tony would retch, nothing would happen, he stomach would be *more* upset that nothing would happen, he would retch some more, and in a few perverse moments, Tony would almost *want* to retch again rather than wait on that edge between the two.

At some point it stopped. Or maybe his stomach simply decided it had would rather stay home and lay on the couch instead of go off on its great adventure outside the body. Tony didn't much care why, just that it had subsided enough that he could breath normally again.

Tony flushed the toilet (twice for good measure and spite), and pulled himself up towards the sink. He clumsily put on the water and wiped his face, rinsed his mouth, and generally regretted life. The cool water felt magnificent - or at least better enough in his wretched state that it almost felt good enough to distract him from his migraine for about 3 seconds. What a marvelous 3 seconds, they were. And then the migraine remembered it was supposed to be awful, and the headache/exhaustion from retching settled in, and Tony was whimpering with his head on the faucet and hands in the sink, letting the cool water run over his pulse points.

"Tony?" Clint opened the door and slid into the room. "How ya doing?"

Tony didn't respond. He was perilously close to tears again, but felt like he was beginning to disassociate from his body from the agony of it all. Could he just stay here forever? Half bent over the bathroom sink, head resting on the cool faucet and the white noise of the running water lulling him into a standby mode until his migraine left him?

"Alright, let's just get you back to bed." And then Clint was moving again, and moving Tony again. Maybe that was the answer, though; to just… take a step back and engage auto-pilot. Let Clint deal with all the… peripheral stuff like turning off the water, drying his hands, walking him back to bed. Clint was awfully good at this - all gentle coaxing and a distinct lack of judgement and snark at how pitiful and incompetent Tony was in his body right now.

"You're a good bro," Tony rasped, as he thought of this. "'Ppreciate that.." His throat was a little raw, it sounded like he'd been screaming all night. It was hard to speak, and Tony knew it would be when he decided to say something, but it deserved being said.

"Gee thanks, Tony." Clint said. He was probably being sarcastic - he usually was when he started a sentence with "gee" - but it sounded suspiciously genuine to Tony's sleep- and pain-muddled mind. He might need to ask JARVIS about it later.

Eventually Tony fell asleep. Something he figured out as he woke up on his other side, with a blanket over him, and the blindfold knot digging into his neck. It took a few seconds to process where he was, what was going on, and to remember he had had a migraine which was -- yup, still there. But not as bad, definitely not as bad. He had no idea how long it had been since he was up and about (if you can call his bathroom visit 'up and about'), but it had to have been some time. Tony would have been alarmed at the loss of time, since the last thing he really remembered was Clint manhandling (Iron Man-handling) him to bed again, but given what he did remember, he thought it might be for the best that he had lost some of the misery to sleep.

The question on his mind now was that if he felt better, did he feel better enough to risk moving rom where he was laying very, very still? Apprehensively, he tried it. And yes! Better enough to move!

Better enough to take off the blindfold? Tony pulled one edge up and peered one eye out to the dimly lit room. It didn't feel like death, so he took that as a yes, and removed the blindfold entirely.

Clint walked in the room carrying a bowl of popcorn and a tablet. When he saw Tony sitting and awake, he quickly put both down on the armchair (that he had clearly moved out of the corner), and came over.

"Hey Tony, how ya feeling?"

Tony took a second. He was feeling better, not best, but he also hadn't spoken yet, and part of him was worried that might be the catalyst to start it all over again.

"Better. Kinda." He croaked, whoops, dry throat. Or remaining raw throat. Or some combo therein. He cast left and right for some water, and Clint handed him a glass from the nightstand. Tony took it and drank most of it down, noticing that his hand was shaking quite a bit.

"Been out for almost a whole day. It's, like, 2am. Well, mostly out. You woke up a few times enough to go to the bathroom and drink some water. Couldn't get you to eat anything, though. You insisted you would just throw it up. 

"Probably would have," Tony whispered back. He didn't quite remember waking up, but there were some flashes now that he focused on it. All of it just didn't seem incredibly important to remember, though, so he let it slip away. He was tired. Exhausted really, which was ironic, considering he'd apparently been sleeping for the better part of 20 hours. 20 hours meant his meds would have work off. He should ask for them.

"Meds?" He asked, and at Clint's blank stare he realized that was not entirely a complete thought and tried again. "Can you get me my meds? And coffee?"

"I'll get you some coffee," Clint said, "And JARVIS can probably direct me to the meds." And he was up and out the door before Tony could form the thought of 'thanks.'

Tony took the few minutes alone to assess his state of health. Pounding still there. Sensitivity to sound and light, yes, but not nearly as bad as before. Smell? Tony didn't *think* so, but… He smelled the air deeply, taking in the popcorn and didn't feel nauseous. One more test. He grabbed the blindfold and held it to his face. Still smelled like Clint, but this time no nausea. Tony breathed a sigh of relief. 

"JARVIS?" Tony asked.

"Sir?"

"Cognitive Assessment, please."

"What is the sum of 2/3 and 7 divided by 2?"

"Haha, very funny. I'm a little more put together than I was in the lab. Give me something a little harder, J, please."

"Very good, Sir." It was scathingly prim. Tony was going to have to set some sort of Operation Migraine subroutine or something to make it up to blindsiding JARVIS with a migraine like this. "Please recite and calculate the equation for root mean square velocity a molecule of Helium at 0 degrees Celsius."

"Alright. Okay." Tony could do this. "How many atmospheres?"

"We'll say 1, as I am being kind."

"Okay, so… Square root of.. 3 times uhh.. 8.314 .. times… 273 Kelvin… divided by .004003. Root over all of that."

"And the calculation?"

"I gotta be honest, J, I can only get as far as 'close to 6825 over .004003.' And square roots are just off the table."

JARVIS's silence was pointed, and telling. That bad? But hey, at least words were working, and he could do some mental math at least in the ballpark of what he needed.

"1304.23 m/sec." He eventually replied. "Though I will allow that this is significantly better than your inability to do simple math this morning."

Tony very nearly blushed at the memory. 2.5 plus half of 2.5. To be honest, Tony was almost impressed at how neatly he had twisted himself in circles trying to do that math. He was preparing (albeit a bit slowly) a stunning retort to that when Clint came back through the door. 

"Coffee is hot," he said, instead of anything else, as he gave Tony his pills (already counted out, thank goodness) and the mug. Tony threw the pills back and made grabby hands at the water glass Clint was also carrying to was them down. He then settled in to drink his coffee as it cooled.

"JARVIS says you are feeling a lot better, but I take it it's still not all sunshine and lollipops?"

"Yeah," Tony grimaced. "Just like a low-level awful now. Like the rager in my head moved downstairs and one apartment over and all I can hear is the dull roar and the kick drum.”

Clint grimaced instead of laughed.

"Did you…? You didn't have to … ah. Did we make it to the bathroom each time?" Tony struggled to ask if he needed to apologize to Clint for having thrown up someplace... inopportune.

Clint grinned a shit-eating grin and nodded.

"All good. Fortunately for both of us, you are *very* good at anticipating when you are going to need the bathroom with enough time to get there."

Tony grinned half-heartedly. Not exactly a thing to be proud of. Clint seemed to notice this and continued.

"No, seriously, Tony. I've played sick nurse to more than a few people in my day, and -" he leaned in conspiratorially, "not that you heard it from me, but not even Natasha is as spot-on with her out-of-her-mind nausea." Clint leaned back. "I don't know how you managed it, but even on what was very clearly minimal function, you were pretty reliable to sitrep accurately."

When he put it like that it didn't sound as mortifying as Tony first thought. He supposed he could see a world in which taking care of someone who was dead-on with their self-assessment was… at least not terrible.

"It comes from the armour," Tony said, and Clint cocked a brow. "If things go wrong, even if I'm about to pass out or I'm out of my mind with pain or panic or drugs or whatever, JARVIS still needs to know certain things to respond appropriately or get the right kind of help. Didn't used to be like that, but I got better."

Clint smiled a halfway sad smile in the way that said he knew exactly what Tony meant.

"Yeah, you start to get to know how to sitrep well after awhile. Like sorting through what information is important in the moment. Sometimes it's important you have a broken leg, sometimes it's more important that you have the one good leg."

Tony looked up from where he had been mesmerized by the coffee in his cup, and caught Clint's eye. That was… a surprisingly clean way of putting it in words.

"Yeah, that's about it…" Tony murmured distantly. He was struck again by the fact that Clint - for all his practical jokes and snark and idiocy - was still a spy. A soldier. He had his own fair share of experience with trauma, so he probably knew exactly what Tony meant.

"The issue with Natasha," Clint started again, a glint in his eye, "is that for her, nausea is never on the list of things worth mentioning. I personally think she thinks she can get rid of it by force of will. The problem is, nausea is rarely an issue for her the same way it is for, well, me. Me, whose sorry ass is usually taking care of her, the honey badger in need that she is."

Tony scoffed. "I am so telling her that you called her a honey badger." 

"Bold of you to assume she wouldn't be thrilled to think of herself that way." Clint retorted, popping some popcorn into his mouth. 

Tony smiled. This felt better. Bearable. Less like he had to apologize to Clint for having to take care of him. More like he could wait out the rest of the migraine with company.

"Thanks." Tony said, startling himself a bit. Did *not* mean to let that slip out, oops. "This was a bad one, I don't think I could have… managed…"

"Well, judging by how you are still squinting in the basically-a-blackout conditions we have here, I'd say it's not over yet. So I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that I'm happy to stick around until it *is* all sunshine and butterflies up in your noggin. The good news is that you get to have me as your sick-day companion and caretaker."

"That… that was two good newses?" Tony knew he was a little iffy still, but he wasn't that out of it (anymore?).

"That's because I qualify being double good news. And because I haven't gotten to the bad news." Tony looked at him expectantly. "The bad news," Clint smirked and pulled up his tablet to show Tony what was on the screen, "is that I have on record that you not only sincerely *thanked* me outside of combat, but that you also told me I'm a 'good bro.' Which I am. The best bro. And now I have video evidence."

Tony groaned and Clint leaned back into the armchair with an air of triumph.

" _YOU_ are the reason I have a migraine, I swear."

Clint just grinned. Despite himself, Tony found himself smiling back.


End file.
